I hadn’t seen a good fellow music school comrade-in-arms for quite some time and we decided to catch up. He’d remembered that the Town Hall Hotel on Errol Street was a great pub (still is, if you ask me) and so we decided to meet up for a casual pub meal.

It hadn’t changed much – everything I loved about it was still there – the red-lit back dining room, the usual pub food suspects, the rad barman with the trucker cap and geeky glasses, the great rock music.

Dave deviated away from his normal ‘roo (which I highly recommend) and went the good ol’ faithful chicken parma. In fact, this is the pub that broke my chicken parma virginity. God, that was in…2007? Pretty embarrassing and very unAustralian. Don’t worry, I’m all assimilated now: I know what the baggy green cap is famous for.

Embarrassingly for me, my body (body yes, not just tummy) is going through the stage where it’s wanting to expel its contents so no rich food for me, pout. It’s a bit irritating given that the body still wants to expel its contents even when there is nothing to expel. I suspect that I may actually be from the Elizabethan times and my four humours are out of whack or I have a sizeable amount of black bile. To be fair, the fairly constant nausea and/or vomiting is causing my levels of black bile to rise, duh. Thanks arsehole body.

The vegie shepherd’s pie was freaking delish, but of course I filled up on bread beforehand. Rookie-foodie mistake. Sadly, the pie conquered me. ‘Fess up, guys, why is your bread so damn good? I suspect they put mash potato in it but maybe I should one day just bloody ask.

Despite that, Dave and I were still considering the crumble of the day to share – till one of the staff members stuck a “N/A” sticker on it. “Nooooo!” I ejaculated, and said “I shake my fist at you, sir!” (said shaking of fist was performed – Dave can confirm this). His deft reply was “I quake in my boots.” Well played, sir.

After taking what was a humiliating amount of time to finish a pot of Coopers’ Pale Ale (oh the shame), both Dave and I had a soft drink before hitting the road.